Magpie attacks snake in suburban Central Coast street
What could be more Australian than a large snake being swooped by an angry magpie in an ordinary suburban street and the resident doesn’t run away but instead stops to video the action?
Central Coast
Don't miss out on the headlines from Central Coast. Followed categories will be added to My News.
- Wave park plan for Central Coast
- Council hands back $4.6 million
- Man in court over alleged surfer carjacking
Which scares you more: snake or swooping magpie?
Two of the most dreaded Australian wildlife seasons have converged in a Terrigal street where a bystander has captured a confrontation between a large python and a swooping magpie.
Just a week after the Australian Reptile Park warned residents to take “extreme caution” because recent rain and rising spring temperatures had combined to drive an early start to the snake season, the large snake can be seen slithering along a suburban gutter.
Resident Allison Ohlback captured the scene in Sacha Terrace where she and family members looked on as the magpie tried to see off the snake in its territory.
The magpie repeatedly swoops the snake which occasionally lunges at it as it tries to move through the area.
Ms Ohlback said she and her family had been drawn in by a commotion outside.
“The birds were going mental,” Ms Ohlback said.
“I went out and my father and my four year old son were watching it,” she said.
“It’s not something your normally see, so I started videoing it.”
Ms Ohlback said the snake eventually coiled up and “played dead” until the magpie lost interest before slithering into a neighbour’s lavender bush.
The Australian Reptile Park says people should keep their lawns mowed and their gardens free of snake hiding places, with more snakes than usual moving through suburbs and bushland.
Meanwhile residents also need to keep an eye out for notoriously territorial magpies which typically swoop from late August through to October.
The fearless feathered fiends are known to swoop pedestrians and cyclists with attacks stepping up as chicks hatch and tapering off as the young leave the nest.
The males are the most likely to swoop and recent studies have supported the theory that the birds can remember faces and will attack the same people every season.